


It's Always Been You

by the_ren_lover



Series: Till Forever Falls Apart [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, WandaVision (TV), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Blink and You'll Miss It Stucky, Crying, Exposition, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Relationship, Predestination, Secrets, Soulmates, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-21 00:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30013515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ren_lover/pseuds/the_ren_lover
Summary: After a month of adapting to his new universe, Peter Maximoff can confidently say that he likes his new life more than his old one. Sure, he misses home sometimes, but he’s been far too busy flirting with his new roommate to spend time crying over the things he’s lost. Everything is smooth sailing until a strange journal in his roommate’s study leaves him with more questions than he knows what to do with. Now he’s on a mission to discover who he’s really living with before she has the chance to turn against him.A.k.a. Peter catches on to the fact that the nice pretty lady might know too much to just be a nice, pretty lady.
Relationships: Peter Maximoff/Reader
Series: Till Forever Falls Apart [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199969
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	1. Past, Present, and Future

**Author's Note:**

> For this fic, the events of Endgame take place in early October, which leaves Wandavision to take place in late October!

Peter couldn’t tell when exactly the mirage started falling apart.

It hadn’t come down all at once but instead dissolved in slow waves that culminated into a disastrous reveal when the pieces stopped fitting together. Part of him wished he could go back to living the lie when every day was filled with the sweet rose-tint of ignorance. Unfortunately, there was no way back to the way things were before, only a long road forward. 

Not everything had been bad. In fact, most of the first month was quite the contrary. 

After his disastrous run-in with the Sorcerer Supreme, a man he now knew as Stephen Strange, Y/N had taken him on a tour of the city, pointing out all of the places he should avoid at all costs. The list wasn’t particularly long, but once he knew where to stay away from he felt fully comfortable to roam the city at his own leisure. That opened up a whole new window of opportunities for Peter to have fun.

The city itself wasn’t as scummy as it had been when Peter was living there at X-Mansion. He still vividly remembered the last time he and Jubilee had taken a trip into the city, watching the prostitutes roaming around Times Square as they passed through on the way to some deli Kurt had recommended to her. Now, everything felt slightly safer and _much_ more staged for tourists. Besides that, though, much to Peter’s surprise, there were very few changes. Of course, there were the massive new skyscrapers run by what he had gathered to be either the rich good guys or the rich bad guys (he hadn’t quite been able to figure out which when Y/N had explained it to him) but if he just pretended they weren’t there, this new New York could pass for his old New York pretty easily. 

Strangely, Peter found he enjoyed living in this universe’s New York _more_ than he’d enjoyed living back at the X-Mansion. He had freedom now. Freedom to roam the city with no curfew, freedom to get food from the kitchen at all hours of the day, freedom to spend as much time as he wanted lazing around the house playing Space Invaders in his room… life in the brownstone was paradise. Every moment was crafted to meet his exact needs. Flawless. Picture perfect in every way... Too perfect.

If Peter was forced to pinpoint where things started to go wrong, it would be the first time he noticed how Y/N’s whole universe seemed to bend at his whims. 

He hated to say that Y/N was the epicenter of the problem. In fact, she was what, in all honesty, gave Peter the most happiness in his day-to-day life. Sure it was nice to spend time alone in his room binging twinkies to keep his blood sugar up, but that seemed pathetic when he compared it to Y/N knocking softly on his door and offering a plate of whatever delicious meal she had come up with at the time. Some days she would lure him out of whatever project he had taken on to show him new movies he had missed in the time jump between universes. On other days, when Peter was feeling cooped up in the house, she would take him to Central Park for cheap hotdogs so they could spend the afternoon watching the seals (which had been Peter’s guilty pleasure as a local ever since he moved into X-Mansion). No matter what, Y/N offered Peter exactly what he didn’t know he needed at every turn looking damn good as she did it. 

Now _that_ was a whole different bag of worms that Peter didn’t like to look into too deeply. Y/N was just… stunning. Everything about her seemed to call to him, a perfect siren’s song luring him closer every time he saw her. She never failed to make Peter laugh. She also took time out of her day to help him learn new things, like how DVDs worked, with all the empathy in the world. Even though she was beautiful to look at and wonderful in every way, Peter found himself attracted to the smallest things about her more than anything else. Her smile, her cooking, the way she danced to her record player when she thought he wasn’t around. 

Peter had trouble putting the feeling into words. He could only imagine it was the first stages of love.

The real kicker was that she liked him! Liked him in a way he had never been liked before. It was as if, in her eyes, he could do no wrong. She laughed at his jokes and pulled him closer when he gravitated to her side and came home with little gifts she found during the day that he always found he loved. Peter’s flaws weren’t chided but instead embraced. He always felt cared for at her side. 

There were some imperfect things about Y/N, though. 

They weren’t large, not at first, but as time passed the small fissures in her facade grew into gaping cracks. They served as the stems from which all of his current problems grew. The biggest original fissure was just how jumpy she was.

99% of the time Y/N was cool and confident. Peter thought she wouldn’t be out of place working as a lawyer or politician. That should have been the first flag in and of itself, but that didn’t matter. What did matter is that the other 1% of the time, which seemed to be triggered randomly by things Peter said or did, she was like a deer in headlights. She would freeze, panic, and only return to normalcy several minutes after Peter either dropped the subject or clarified whatever he said. Once Peter caught on to how strange that was, other odd things about Y/N began to show through in day-to-day life.

Things like knowing facts about Peter that she shouldn’t know.

The first time she brought him home his favorite candy he assumed she had just guessed correctly, but then she brought him a VHS of his favorite movie. And bought his favorite foods when she went out shopping that Peter was _sure_ she hadn’t bought before. And took him to a fancy Manhattan leather store to buy a very obviously custom-made silver leather jacket that she _just so happened_ to see in the window. 

He would always thank her profusely, just glad to get things he enjoyed, and remark on how odd it was for her to know him so well after such a small about of time. Y/N would just smile and chalk it up to intuition. Intuition could only count for so much. 

Y/N did other, smaller strange things as well, but Peter couldn’t say he noticed them much until after he confronted her. He simply assumed she only ate at certain restaurants because she was a picky eater, and avoided cars because she wanted to save the environment. She could have just been an average person who just so happened to use gilded silverware and have a spectacular, museum-quality collection of odd, assorted antiques sitting around her perfectly-furnished, historical brownstone that she was able to comfortably live in while working a relatively low paying job…

Peter had never been known for his smarts, but looking back, even he was disappointed that he hadn’t seen the signs sooner. Love is blind and it also blinds. His eyes only opened when he found the journal. 

The illusion fell apart on a Wednesday afternoon.

It was cool, with the crisp late-autumn breeze leaving a slight chill present throughout the day. The sky had turned grey, not from rain yet, just from the general gloom of the season. Peter didn’t mind. He was looking forward to the first big thunderstorm in his new home. 

Y/N had left for work in the morning with a spring in her step and a smile on her lips. On her way out the door, they had flirted a little more than usual, and as a result, Peter had been thinking about her for the rest of the day. He was too busy thinking about the way she had ruffled his hair while she passed him on the couch to do anything of value with his time but much too bored to stand still. His compromise? Snooping. 

There was a little study on the first floor that served as a workspace and library for the household. It wasn’t off limit’s by any means, but it was the last place left that Peter hadn’t explored since moving in (besides Y/N’s room, of course). Something, whether it was boredom or suspicion pushed Peter to go inside and explore. He promised himself it would only be for a minute. 

Once he stepped inside, his plans changed. 

The moment he walked past the door’s threshold it was like a wave of warmth had washed over him. Every bit of the autumn chill that had made its way into the old bones of the rest of the house was seemingly absent from the library. Peter quirked up an eyebrow. Slowly, he stepped back out of the room. 

Instantly the chill was present again.

He stepped forward. Warm.

Backward. Cold.

Warm. 

Cold.

Warm.

Cold. 

To an onlooker he would have seemed crazed, speeding in and out of the doorway with his powers trying to find a logical explanation for the phenomenon. To Peter, though, it was like he had finally cracked the code. This was _proof_ … okay, so a room being warm didn’t prove anything, Peter didn’t even know what it would be proof of, but something about it satisfied the constant anxiety that had been pooling in his stomach in the weeks since he had moved in. From that moment on he was fixated on finding out what was so special about the library and what it had to do with him.

Once he had steeled his emotions, he finally re-entered the room for the final time, letting himself acclimate to the comforting heat that seemed to radiate from everywhere inside while taking a look around. 

At first glance, it was just a nicely decorated office. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined 3 of the 4 walls, with the remaining wall opposite the door left free to make room for a small, mahogany roll top desk that sat proudly in the center of the room on the matching wood flooring. There was some decoration on the far wall, though. Above the desk, spanning the entire length of the wall were 5 large portraits of men. They seemed to loom over the room, their eyes boring holes into whoever entered, but something about them seemed more melancholy than threatening. 

“Creepy,” Peter whispered to himself as he took another step into the room, gazing up at the paintings, "really fucking creepy," 

The first portrait seemed to be the oldest of the group by far, with the paint piled on thick as if the artist had to correct themselves multiple times over while they worked. It featured a Greek or Roman soldier, dressed in shining gold armor while they bared a wolflike girn and held up a jug of wine towards the painter. It wasn’t period accurate- Peter was pretty sure a typical canvas wouldn't have held up since the greek days, and that realism didn’t really exist in paintings back then -but there was a life in the soldier’s eye that made him wonder what circumstances had inspired the subject to pose as he did. 

The next three portraits, in comparison, were a bit bland. They were all pretty formal and seemed to have been done around the same time. All three frames held their own well-dressed dandy with small differences separating them. The first man had a little Gomez Addams pencil mustache, the next wore a military uniform and a sly smile, and the last was dressed in an ill-fitting suit while looking about 5 minutes from death. There could have been more differences, but Peter brushed over them quickly in favor of the final painting.

Portrait number five was, very obviously, the newest of the collection, featuring a modern man, probably 18 or 19, posing goofily on a chair Peter recognized as Y/N’s preferred sitting chair in the living room. Surprisingly, that wasn’t what caught his eye. Peter found himself gaping at the man’s face. 

It was almost like looking through a funhouse mirror. Peter saw echoes of himself in the subject; the silver-blonde hair, the cheeky smirk on his face, the skid marks on the bottom of his worn sneakers. Hell, if it weren’t for the light five o’clock shadow dusting the man’s jaw Peter probably would have mistaken it for himself. 

Something about the painting was both hypnotizing and sickening. Its pull was so strong that Peter only noticed he was getting closer when he knocked into the desk, sending a pile of papers falling to his feet. As he gathered them he could feel the eyes of the men above him on his back, urging him to look closer, dragging him into their strange gravitational field. Peter probably would have been more worried about the paintings before he saw the papers, though.

There, written in Y/N’s handwriting with brilliant red ink on the first page of a small, leatherbound journal, was one word: Magneto.

Peter’s heart stopped. 

_Nobody_ , especially in a whole other universe, should know about his father except him. It was a secret he was sure he hadn’t mentioned even when the FBI had interrogated him. Hell, Raven had taken the secret to her grave even despite her complicated relationship with Erik. 

A deep pit of rage began to burn in Peter’s stomach. Who was Y/N? How the hell did she find out who Magneto even _was_? Worst of all, why didn’t she mention it to him? 

Without even thinking about what he was doing Peter opened the journal to the next page and began reading. He was going to find out what Y/N was hiding if it was the last thing he ever did. 

_October 4th, 2023,_

_I returned from purgatory today. “The Snap” has been reversed and Thanos has been defeated, thankfully with little cost. If that was death, I hope I never have to face it again. Tony is still weak, as am I, but both of us will live to see another day thanks to my gifts. I hope Howard knows I fulfilled my promise and protected his son._

_While I was in the in-between, the grey place between worlds, I saw Magneto again. He seemed strangely at peace with himself. Hopefully, this means there will be no trouble with him in the future._

_Once we hold a proper funeral for the lost the real work begins. Tonight, though, I am glad to be alive._

His father’s name appeared, but the rest of the entry was confusing. Peter kept reading.

_October 7th, 2023,_

_We held the funeral today. I still despise Thor with everything within myself, but he and I held a small memorial for his brother once Clint had been properly buried and eulogized. He offered a poor apology for the hostile takeover of my home, but I accepted nonetheless. It’s what Loki would have wanted. Besides, his bastard father is already dead and his home has been destroyed, so Asgard’s power over Alfheim is now nonexistent. Perhaps now that things here have calmed down I’ll visit my mother and father again..._

_I tried talking to Wanda but she refuses to speak to me. She doesn’t understand that even though I foresaw Vision’s passing, I couldn’t stop it. The same goes for her brother. If I were her, I would hate me too. I’ll try calling her again later this week once she can properly mourn. Until then, all I can do is wait._

Peter’s stomach dropped.

He had to reach out and steady himself on the desk to keep from wobbling when he was reminded of his time in the Hex. His memories of the time were misty, clouded around the edges as he was puppeteered through a charade, but the pain, both mental and physical, was still sharp even a month later. If he pretended it had never happened life was easy but when he accepted the week or so he spent in Westview it took his mind to a dark place. Unfortunately, there was now no way to both ignore his time in Westview and pull the wool out from in front of his eyes.

He trudged forward, stomach in knots, praying that Y/N hadn’t been involved. 

_October 9th, 2023,_

_Steve almost destroyed our timeline this morning._

_He had originally been assigned to return the stones to their respective places in the past, but thankfully I saw his bullshit plan before he was able to put it into action. It took both Sam and James to restrain him, but Natasha returned the stones and was able to come back to the present before he could escape. He’s still mourning Peggy and has decided to hang up the shield for the moment while he figures himself out, but James is there for him as he has always been. I am jealous in the best of ways._

_Wanda still hasn’t taken any of my calls, but Stark insisted I shouldn’t worry._

_I will return home today for the first time since I was revived. It scares me. My visions always get clearer when I’m there. I’m afraid that somewhere in the past five years something terrible could have happened that I never even knew about. I suppose the only way of knowing is to wait and see. Hopefully, I will be able to shelf my powers for a couple of decades soon. Seeing and preventing the future is tiring._

_October 22nd, 2023,_

_Pietro visited me in a dream today._

_He was dead, bleeding through his clothes as I held him and wept, and yet he was there sitting next to me too. I apologized like I always do. This time, though, he forgave me._

_I don’t fully understand what the dream was supposed to signify but he rested his head on my shoulder just like old times and told me he knew. I asked what he was talking about and he said he knew he was going to die when he did, and that it wasn’t my fault._

_I turned to ask him why he was telling me that and he was gone. I held his body until I woke up._

_Nothing is clear to me yet, but something has changed. There’s been a shift in the energy of the world. Maybe Pietro was trying to warn me… or maybe things are finally falling into place. I can only wait._

_October 25th, 2023,_

_Wanda has a whole town hostage._

_She’s wielding chaos magic._

_Pietro was an omen_

_This is all my fault._

Peter clutched his chest as he fought for air. His head was spinning 

Y/N could see the future. When taking that and whatever light-based magic she used at the museum into consideration, Peter had no clue what she was capable of. Hell, she might have even more power hiding up her sleeve. 

Worse than that, she knew his real name. She had never called him Pietro, not once, and yet she wrote about him like she knew him. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps she was writing about this universe’s Pietro, but he shut it down quickly. She would have told him if she knew something about his counterpart. Right? _Right_? He pocketed the idea. Y/N could be capable of anything. 

Underestimating her could prove deadly. 

There was one last journal entry, boldly written in the same red as the others but scrawled much messier as if it had been done in a hurry. Peter had to force himself to focus on the words as he shook from a healthy mix of fear and rage.

_November 1st, 2023,_

_Jimmy called me today. Peter is here._

_Well, not here yet, but he’s_ **_here_ ** _. He called to ask if I could take in a superpowered individual who he had in witness protection. The moment the words reached me I could see them walking in, Jimmy and Peter._ **_My_ ** _Peter. I accepted, of course. Only 5 hours left to go until they arrive. Surprisingly, journaling is doing little to calm my nerves._

_I shouldn’t be this afraid. I know the outcome. I’ve been preparing to meet him for almost 3000 years now. Still, I can’t help but think the next 5 hours will be the longest of my whole existence._

_His room is already set up, as it has been for a long time, but I should dust before he gets here so it doesn’t look like I was waiting for him. If I know anything, I know that Peter cannot know about what I am or what he means to me. This burden shall be mine to bear alone._

_Is it selfish to hope that he never goes home? Even if it is, I deserve to be a little bit selfish._

_Four and a half hours left. Just a little more time until he’s home and safe. I’ll be counting every second._

The journal fell from Peter’s hands with a dull thud.

At that moment, the front door opened. 

“Hey, Peter! I’m home, and I brought dinner,” Y/N’s voice was bright as she stepped past the threshold, “where are you?”

“The study,” he called back, “we need to talk,”


	2. You've Lived In My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter finally gets some answers about Y/N

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this series, Thor is about 3500 years old, and Loki is about 3000. This has no bearing on their physical age, they just needed to be older for the timeline to make any sense.

Peter could almost hear Y/N’s breath hitching in the other room. Then, silence. All of the warmth that had flowed so abundantly from every nook and cranny of the study moments before seemed to drain away, leaving the room lifeless and cold. All the while the eyes of the painted men watched on like sentinels above the world of man.

A minute passed, maybe two, but soon enough Y/N had appeared in the doorway, eyes cast down to the floor where the journal had fallen from Peter’s grasp. She smiled sadly. “I’m guessing you found my journal,”

He didn’t give her the indulgence of a verbal reply. 

“How much did you read?” She whispered, walking past Peter and sitting down on the small, rolling office chair that rested in front of the desk. 

“All of it,” he muttered back.

Peter had never been one for confrontation. It was in the nature of his power to want to run from things, and run from them _fast_. He ran from his bullies, he ran from his father, he ran from his universe… this time, though, there was nowhere to run to. 

Strangely, he found that even if there were, he wouldn’t want to run from this.

Y/N slowly wrapped her arms around herself, gripping the soft knit of her sweater sleeves. “I assume you have questions… I’ll answer whatever you want me to. Once you know the truth, we can decide where to go from there,”

Peter couldn’t help himself from blurting out his first thought. 

“What the hell are you?”

A small laugh escaped from her lips. It was an awkward thing, loud and crass against the quiet words that had been exchanged moments before. 

“What _am_ I,” Y/N chuckled. Slowly, she lowered her head into her hands. “Peter, I’ve been asking myself the same question for a long, long time,” She scrubbed at her eyes with her fingers. It was like she was trying to forget something terrible that she’d seen, her hands desperately finding purchase against her eyelids as she laughed at nothing. 

Peter gulped. “Are you…. are you not human?” 

Y/N gave him a scathing look that told him his question was a stupid one. 

“Well, if you’re not human, where did you come from? Are you an alien?” 

Humorless laughter continued to ring out against the cold walls. 

“Are you going to let me answer your original question first, or are you going to keep speculating?” She sighed, lifting her gaze to meet him. Exhaustion danced across her face, like all of the life had been drained from her in the short time she had spent speaking to him after she got home. 

He stopped himself from questioning her further for the moment in favor of deciphering the sad look in her eyes. It wasn’t hard to believe that he had been mesmerized enough by her beauty to ignore all of the suspicious things she did. In all honesty, he still was. 

“I wasn’t born,” Y/N started, hugging herself tighter, “but I didn’t spontaneously appear one day either. I was created. My mother and father are… well, to put it plainly, fae royalty. They were the first fairies, high elves who had evolved to become conduits for life energy, but they were lonely. They wanted a child of their own, an heir who would be powerful enough to protect the realm from invaders, so they found the largest source of energy available: the embodiment of the sun, Lugh.”

Her leg began to bounce, her foot tapping ceaselessly against the wooden floorboards. Peter didn’t quite notice, though, too enraptured in her story to notice much of anything else. 

“They combined their life forces with Lugh’s light and created a child with capabilities beyond anything the nine realms had seen up until that point. It stored massive amounts of magical energy within its soul and accomplished all of the typical fae magical feats with no problem, but it was also connected to all the life around it. Elves who met the heiress said that they felt calm in its presence, and felt compelled to give her whatever she desired when they looked into her eyes. They named the child Puck. That child was me,”

“So you’re a fairy?” Peter asked.

“Fairy, fae, elf, freak of nature…” Her voice trailed off into nothingness as she closed her eyes, “I’ve never quite fit into any of the labels I was supposed to,”

“But why do you look so…”

“Human?” Y/N’s voice quivered, “Yeah, after living here so long keeping my human face on is second nature,” 

Peter couldn’t tell if he should be terrified, enraged, or intrigued. 

As gently as he could manage, he padded over to Y/N on her chair and cupped her small, soft cheek in his hand. She leaned into the touch without a second thought, squeezing her eyes shut and letting a few tears fall from her eyes. His voice was soft as he perched down at her level.

“Show me?”

Y/N gave him a short nod before pulling her face away. Both of them winced minutely at the loss of contact. Slowly, though, the glamour around Y/N’s face melted away. Once it was gone, she was finally herself.

Her ears were pointed, sloping in a soft horizontal line through the strands of her hair. Her eyes were different, too. The pupil was larger, more doll-like, but not by very much. The largest difference was, admittedly, the scars. 

Y/N was mostly covered, bundled up in her sweater to fight against the cold, but her hands were littered with scars of all shapes and sizes. Most were old, pale divots in her flesh, but there were a few new ones too, trailing pink and red in angry lines across the meat of her calloused palms. The scars didn’t seem to stop at her hands. Specifically, the largest and most wicked of all the scars was a thick gash that ran all the way down from the top of her cheekbone to the base of her neck. The skin looked as if it had been eviscerated, torn completely through, but somehow it had healed up relatively well. 

When Peter met Y/N’s gaze, her face was full of shame. 

“Isn’t it atrocious?” she muttered, revealing little, sharp incisors hidden beneath her full upper lip, “You can’t blame me for wanting to hide this from you, Peter, not after seeing me like this. This isn’t the kind of face someone wants to wake up next to in the morning,” 

Peter had a hard time finding the right thing to say in response. 

He was still angry, and rightfully so. Y/N had been keeping the truth about what she was away from him and still had many more secrets up her sleeve about how they were connected. If he wanted to get the truth out of her he couldn’t get away with going soft so early in the game.

That being said, he still felt for her. His heart ached as she hid the scar on her cheek with her hand. She had been so kind, so outgoing, but now she was a shrinking violet doing her best to disappear from his view. 

Peter’s gut said to push forward, but his heart urged him to take her face in his hands and kiss her until the pain went away. In the end, he followed his gut. 

“I don’t care about what you look like,” he said, standing up and moving to lean on the doorframe, “I care about answers,”

“Of course you do,” With a heaving breath, Y/N’s face morphed back into its human form, “everybody always does,”

Suddenly, a book flew off the shelf to Peter’s right and landed directly in Y/N’s outstretched hand. “How-” he gaped.

“A retrieval spell,” she muttered, “Now where was I…” 

She searched through the pages for a moment before landing on an illustration and turning it out towards Peter. It looked ancient, hand done with some sort of brown ink and captioned in a language he couldn’t begin to understand. The illustration itself was easier to decipher. It featured a child in a crown holding up a sword in front of what looked to be an army.

“Because I was created instead of born I was able to skip all the messy parts of childhood, but that meant I had to skip all the fun ones. From the day I was born my parents had me trained to take the throne. I learned combat, diplomacy, etiquette… my parents weren’t equipped for fighting against the Asgardians who always seemed to be eyeing our land, but they were determined to make sure I was. I was a machine of rote motions until I saw you for the first time,”

Peter froze. “Me?”

Y/N cracked a smile. “Who else? I was less than 100 years old then, still a child at heart, and one night when I fell asleep I dreamed of a silver-haired man who looked nothing like any of the elves I knew in a strange room filled with mysterious artifacts. It was like seeing the world through brand new eyes. My gift was so magical back then, so new, a source of joy. I kept seeing you wherever I went, flashes of your life behind my eyes during the day and full prophetic dreams at night… things didn’t stay that pleasant for long, though,”

Her eyes began to well up with tears.

Peter considered reaching out to comfort her, but his confusion held him back. She blinked the tears away before she continued.

“I started seeing terrible things happening to you. I saw experiments, broken limbs… even death. They wouldn’t stop. No matter how much I tried to turn them off they just wouldn’t stop,” her voice trembled and her shoulders shook as she spoke. “That’s when my parents sent me away. They claimed I couldn’t let the citizens see their future leader as someone weak, so I was taken into isolation until I learned how to control what I saw. It took me almost 350 years of silent study and meditation but I was able to master my foresight. I didn’t just see you anymore, I could see anyone’s future if I put my mind to it, and I could control when I had my visions. They only let me out to fight in the war against the Asgardians, who had taken the chance to attack,” 

“So you’re telling me that thousands of years before I was even born you just… saw me in the future?” Peter’s voice wavered. Y/N shrugged and turned the book back towards herself, searching through the pages once again. 

“Yes and no. It’s hard to explain,”

“Well try!” his voice came out in a sudden shout. Y/N flinched. “I just want to know what the hell is going on here! Because, the way I’m seeing it right now, I got kidnapped out of my home because someone decided I was predestined to play house with an elf instead of staying with my friends and family,” 

He regretted his tone the second he stopped shouting.

Y/N, despite her reaction, seemed almost unphased. In fact, she seemed to be shaking less than she had been before. 

“Y/N… I’m sorry-”

“Don’t,” she said sharply, “don’t apologize. Not to me. This whole mess is my fault,”

Peter went to open his mouth again, to find something to say, but found himself speechless. He was speechless a lot around Y/N. She turned the book around again. 

This time the illustration seemed to be of a woman on a throne. There was red ink on the page too, not just brownish-black like the last one. It was splattered across the woman and at her feet. 

“I fought Asgardians for 50 years on the front lines, killing a great many of them in the process. Even Thor, their golden boy with his stupid magical hammer, was no match for me. I saw every move they made before they ever made it, so once I diminished enough of their troops they pulled out of Alfheim and returned home with their tails between their legs. When I returned home I was revered as a great hero and it was like I had never failed my parents in the first place. Their precious progeny was home victorious and prepared to reap the rewards. My teenage rebellion kicked in, though, so instead of taking back my place in the palace I demanded my parents let me go to earth as my reward for winning them their war.”

“Is that how you got your scars?” Peter asked. 

Y/N sighed, closing the book and returning it to the shelf with a wave of her hand. “Yes.” Slowly, she raised her hand and touched her cheek where her scar would have been. “Some came later, but the worst of them are from the final battle. I only let my concentration slip for a second, but that was enough time for Thor to summon lightning with that damned hammer of his and get a good hit in,” 

“I’m gonna be honest, your whole backstory sounds pretty shitty,”

She barked out another laugh as Peter allowed himself to smile. “If you think _that_ was shitty, the next 2,500 years of history won’t be pleasant to listen to,”

“Don’t think I’m not still mad at you,” Peter said, but it was an empty threat. Sure, the rage he had initially felt was still there, but what had been at a boil when Y/N came home was now just a low simmer. 

She offered him a soft smile back. “I wouldn’t dare. Now, that’s enough about my past. If there’s anything else you want to ask, now's the time,”

Peter busied himself with cracking his knuckles. “I still don’t really get what’s so special about me to you. Like, yeah you saw some bad stuff happen to me when you were a kid, but it’s been a really long time since then. What makes me so special?” 

The smile fell from Y/N’s face.

“That’s… well that’s a good question, Peter,” She wrung her hands, standing to take a step towards him, “I don’t think I’ll be able to say it… can I show you instead?”

He quirked his head to the side. “What?”

“Can I show you?” Y/N gently tapped her forehead, “with my power?”

A soft ‘ah’ escaped Peter’s lips before he stepped forward, bridging the gap between them. “Do what you need to do,” He didn’t say he trusted her, but he didn’t need to. It went without saying.

She reached out a hand and touched Peter’s forehead without another word. Then, the wave hit him. 

Seeing Y/N’s mind was like the first time he had ever run at full speed, an endless barrage of emotions and images blurring as he rushed towards a focal point. It felt like an eternity before the motion stopped, but once it did he found himself looking out at a rolling sea with the weight of an arm around his shoulders. In a trance, he turned his head to look at whoever was there.

_“I suppose this is it for us, my dearest Lady Puck?”_ The man asked, running his free hand through his long black hair. His tone was light yet thoughtful. Peter easily recognized him from the first portrait on the wall. 

Without any effort, a response poured from Peter’s… no, Y/N’s lips. _“Y/N, Loki, my new name is Y/N,”_

 _“Ah, yes. Remind me again why you’re renouncing your godliness and going to live among the common rabble?”_ The man’s words were suddenly mocking, _“Oh right, you have to assimilate to prepare for your darling Peter,”_

 _“Don’t say it like that,”_ The Y/N of the past pulled her knees to her chest.

Loki nodded. _“Forgive me. I’m just taking this a little harder than I should be. Who would have thought that I would fall in love with my mortal enemy?”_ He paused, _“Will our paths cross again,”_

Y/N shook her head no. _“You will return to Asgard and remain there for as long as I can see. I think this is where we diverge,”_

Peter watched from his position of backseat driver as Loki leaned close to Y/N. _“Well, all good things must come to a close at some point,”_ He stroked her scar, smiling softly, _“but don’t think that I’ll let you go to just anyone. I know this Peter is just a puny mortal, so expect me to come back and find you once he appears. Consider me your own personal Mjolnir! I will determine if he’s worthy of your heart,”_

Giggles escaped from Y/N’s lips. _“_ ** _Loki_ ** _! Don’t you dare_ ,”

 _“You couldn’t stop me if you tried, darling,”_ He growled back, before capturing Y/N’s lips in a kiss. When he pulled away, he smiled his sharp-toothed grin. _“Fly free, Lady Puck. I’ll see you again,”_

A deep, foreign ache in Peter’s heart told him that he never did. Then, Loki was gone, blurred into the flood of memories and feelings in Y/N’s mind. The second time was easier than the first, but he still felt an acute nausea as he was thrown into another memory. This time he seemed to be much closer to the present. 

Y/N was sketching something on a canvas, penciling in soft, rounded lines as the man with the pencil mustache lounged on a nearby chair, tie crooked. 

_“So tell me about this Peter,”_ he asked, taking a long puff from a cigar.

_“Well, everyone, where I’m from, says he must be my soulmate. He’s witty, and fast, and has this phenomenal shock of silver hair,”_

Peter, despite what he’d just seen in Y/N’s memories, was still shocked at her words. Soulmates?

 _“But you’ve never met him, so how do you know?”_ He asked, _“Look, sweet cheeks, I’m not one to judge, but how do you know he’s even real?”_

Y/N scowled, letting her pencil slip and adding an unwanted line to her sketch. “ _Howard, have I ever been wrong before?”_

_“Well no, but-”_

_“Exactly,”_ Y/N abandoned the sketch in favor of walking over and sitting at the foot of Howard’s chair. _“Besides, even if he isn’t real, I know enough about him that he might as well be,”_

 _“Whatever you say, sweet thing,”_ He chuckled, offering her his cigar. She accepted it thankfully. 

“ _Anyways, it’s like I can feel him getting closer and closer,”_ Peter could just feel Y/N’s grin as she spoke, cheeks flushed, _“I just can’t wait to finally meet him.”_

_“I’m guessing that means you’ll have to give up helping me with my little projects,”_

Y/N took a long puff, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. _“Not exactly. We still have time left, Howard. Besides, I don’t do much to help, I can’t even touch any of your materials,”_

Howard snorted. _“I still can’t believe you’re allergic to silver and iron of all things. I didn’t even know that was possible,”_

 _“You’re just mad it means you have to buy me expensive jewelry instead of the cheap shit you’ve bought for other women,”_

_“You know me too well,”_

They both laughed and Y/N handed Howard back his cigar. 

In the blink of an eye, Peter was transported again. It was almost like riding a bike after a long time, where the deeper he delved the more comfortable he felt. This time, instead of nausea, there was a strange warmth in his chest. 

Y/N stood at the edge of a crowded dance hall as the men from the 3rd and 4th portrait approached, drinks in hand. Peter was beginning to see a pattern. 

_“A sidecar_ _for the pretty lady,”_ the bigger of the men joked while leading the group to a small table. 

Y/N accepted the glass gladly, taking a long drink. _“Thank you, James”_

The small one sat across from her and took a long drink of his beer. 

_“You too, Steve,”_ she amended, earning a smile. 

_“Now doll,”_ James leaned in close, his forearms braced against the table, _“Steve and I wanted to thank you for the little favor you did us last week. Didn’t we, Steve?”_

Steve nodded quickly. _“You really are a knockout gal’ Y/N. You didn’t have to, but you did, and we couldn’t be more grateful,’_

Y/N shrugged. _“It was nothing. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,”_

_“We never doubted that-”_

James jumped in. _“We just wanted you to know we were thinking about you, and Steve brought up that it would be nice to return the favor. I was thinking maybe we could help find you a beau, anybody you want, and by anybody, we mean_ **anybody** , not limited to conventional partners”

Y/N’s face began to flush as she started laughing, offering each of the men one of her hands. _“James, Steve, I love you both to death and I would never want to make you feel like I felt anything else, but no. No way,”_

The two men joined her in her laughter, but Steve stopped a little quicker than the other two did, looking down at his hands. _“We just noticed that you don’t get out much. You’re beautiful Y/N, really beautiful, and it’s not fair that you have to be alone,”_

 _“Oh, Steve”_ She gave his hand a squeeze, _“you’re incredibly sweet, but my heart already belongs to someone. He…”_ Y/N’s voice trailed off, the ambient noise in the bar suddenly deafening. Peter could hear his own name, whispered gently from the depths of her mind.

James gave her a look of pity. _“Oh, doll… did you lose him overseas? Is that why?”_

Y/N was shocked but quickly covered for herself. _“Yes, how did you know?”_

 _“You’ve just got that faraway widow’s look in your eye,”_ James responded. 

_“Sorry for your loss,”_ Steve added quickly.

Y/N looked down and noticed her glass was empty. She stood suddenly. _“It’s alright boys, it’s alright. Now, which of you is gonna do me the honor of joining me for the next song?”_

Peter was pulled from the memory gently the moment James shot her a wolflike grin, drifting through the collage of memories for a moment before he heard his name, whispered from within the darkness. 

There was a strong pull towards the light, dragging him out of Y/N’s mind, but something was calling for him to go deeper, delve further to find… well, he didn’t know yet. In a split-second decision, he threw himself towards the voice only to find himself strapped to some kind of chair, screaming.

No, Y/N was screaming. It was an atrocious, wet sound, and Peter could taste the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. He felt no pain physically, but he could feel the memory of pain, the phantom sensation of torturous, searing agony burning through her veins. Her screaming cut off suddenly, and Peter was once again pulled from the memory and into another. 

_“_ _Prinţesă?”_ A man asked, and Peter looked up to find his doppelganger from the final portrait looking down at Y/N. He looked worse for wear, with dirt and dust coating his face and hair. Around them, the sounds of shooting and crumbling buildings rang out in the streets. Y/N was gripping his sleeve like a lifeline. _“What are you doing?”_

 _“Please, Pietro, don’t go,”_ fat tears ran down Y/N’s cheeks and Peter felt a pit of dread drop into his stomach. _“You can’t go,”_

 _“I will be right back for you,”_ Pietro reassured her, _“and then once Ultron is defeated we will return to Stark’s compound with Wanda. Things will be good from now on. No more Hydra, no more sneaking around, just you and me and the whole world waiting to be explored,”_

Y/N gripped his sleeve tighter. _“You don’t understand! You_ ** _can’t_** _go. I can’t lose you like this. Not now. Not after I've only just found you after all this time!"_

Pietro laughed softly. With a grimey hand, he wiped the wetness from Y/N’s face. _“Draga mea, you do not have to worry about me. I am faster than those stupid machines.”_ Suddenly, a child’s wails filled the air. Pietro looked around, searching for the source, but Y/N didn’t budge, almost as if she expected it. _“You need to let me go, I need to go help that child,”_

Y/N shook her head no. _“We need to go, Pietro, we need to get out of here. I can fly us off before it hits and then we can run and never look back. Please, come with me Pietro, before it’s too late,”_

He yanked his arm away from Y/N’s grip, puzzled. _“And leave these innocents to die?”_

She nodded furiously, sobbing silently as she held herself. _“Are their lives really so important that you’d throw yours away?”_

Pietro backed away from Y/N slowly, disgust spreading on his face. _“Yes,”_ he spat, _“and I thought you agreed,”_ Then, he paused, _“We will talk about this later. I am disappointed in you Y/N,” ..._ and then he was gone before she even had the chance to say goodbye.

The gunshots that followed were the loudest of all.

Then, Y/N was running through the streets, searching frantically for any sign of Pietro. When she found him, he was already getting cold.

**_"PIETRO!"_ **

Her wail was deafening as she fell to the ground, scooping his body into her arms and hugging it to her chest.

 _“I can fix you, don’t worry Pietro,”_ she babbled, spit running from her mouth as she tried to push life energy from herself into him, _“Don’t leave me alone now, not after all this time. I can’t lose you like this. Just hold on a little bit longer,”_

No matter how much energy she poured into Pietro’s body, it just drained right back out. That didn’t stop her from trying, though. Somewhere in the distance, Peter could hear someone wailing _his_ name, but he held onto the memory, gazing down at his dead doppelganger’s empty eyes. 

Y/N’s babbling didn’t stop, even as the ground beneath her began falling down. She ran her fingers through Pietro’s messy hair and held him closer to her chest.

 _“It’s okay Pietro, you’re safe now. Nothing can hurt you anymore._ Le ni meleth _, Pietro. Everything will be okay now. I’ll be with you soon,_ nin melda _. Wait for me. I am so sorry,”_ As an impact destroyed the street around them, Y/N pressed a soft kiss to Pietro’s forehead, and Peter was thrown forcibly from her mind.

“ **Peter**!” Y/N wailed, hands shaking as she pressed a scarred palm to his forehead and pushed his sweat-soaked hair away. “Peter you have to wake up now, you have to wake up!” 

He shot up, heaving in a breath that soothed his burning lungs. It was a shock to be back in his own body. Slowly, Peter realized he wasn’t standing anymore. Instead, his head had been resting on Y/N’s lap while he splayed out on the cold wood floor. 

As he reacclimated to his body, Y/N wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed.

Once he had enough air in his lungs, Peter only had one question; “What the hell just happened?”

Y/N cried louder, rocking back and forth. “You died! I messed up and you died! It’s all my fault, all of this is all my fault,” 

Peter pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Y/N,” he said firmly, “You need to calm down and tell me what just happened,” 

She shook her head no, clawing at her hair as she dribbled onto the floor. 

In a moment of weakness, which was probably warranted, Peter broke. “Y/N!” he shouted, “Get it together! What. Happened.”

Y/N stilled, eyes dead. “I was trying to pull you out of my memories,” she mumbled, still trembling, “but for some reason, I couldn’t get you to let go. I kept trying and trying but it wouldn’t work. Then you just… collapsed and your heart stopped. I was trying to heal you, but I had to keep the connection between us going while I did so you wouldn’t get lost in my memories and- and-” her words devolved into quiet sobs as Peter slouched against the wall, lifting his hand and finding that his cheeks were wet too.

He wanted to comfort her. To tell her it was okay, that _he_ was okay. To make sure she knew he wasn’t angry anymore, that he understood… that he loved her too. Somehow, though, he couldn’t find the words. All he could do was stare forward and cry as the vision of Pietro’s dead body danced behind his eyelids.

When Y/N finally quieted, she stood silently. “What did you see,” she whispered.

“Pietro,” Peter wheezed back.

Y/N nodded, wiping her face. 

“I’m so sorry, Peter. You were never supposed to see that.” She walked towards the door, opening it up and pausing in the doorway. “Jimmy’s number is next to the rotary phone in the den and my bank card will be on the side table in the mudroom. I… goodbye, Peter. I’ll let myself out,"

Peter turned, reaching a hand out to try to stop her from leaving, but she was already gone, so he just let himself go limp, crying for a man he never met but knew better than he ever wanted to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sindarin/Elvish Translation  
> Le Ni Meleth: I love you  
> Nin Melda: My dearest
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!!! I'm sorry this took so long, but I wanted it to be perfect and the word count just got away from me... Now that the exposition is over, I can finally start writing about the kind of stuff you guys want to see! There will be angst in the future, but they deserve a little break ;P. 
> 
> I am eternally grateful for the wonderful people reading my work. I also adore comments and love to take them into consideration for determining where the plot goes next. 
> 
> Now, next time we finally get to see Peter and the reader insert working things out with no secrets between them! I hope you're excited!


End file.
